"Horrible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... devil! Yes, a devil that glared at me from the glass! a devil that was, and yet was not, myself! a devil that had my form, and looked out of my face, but with its own cruel, mocking eyes! And he and I confronted each other in that horrible glass. I know not how long, but they told me afterward that I was found next morning making ghastly faces ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... in an obsolete fashion: or rather, was not so much dressed as put into a case of inferior pepper-and- salt cloth, made horrible by means of shining buttons. I observed that these buttons went, in a double row, over each shoulder of the young ghost, and appeared to descend his back. He wore a frill round his neck. His right hand (which I distinctly noticed to be inky) was laid upon his stomach; connecting ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... the world below—Cocytus and Styx, ghosts under the earth, and sapless shades, and any similar words of which the very mention causes a shudder to pass through the inmost soul of him who hears them. I do not say that these horrible stories may not have a use of some kind; but there is a danger that the nerves of our guardians may be rendered too ...
— The Republic • Plato
... hide? This is most horrible, but it is no deed of mine!" said Richard. "Who dares to think ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... relations, distressed at his imprisonment, had already offered L100 for his release, but Fox would not accept the pardon this sum might have obtained for him as he said he had done nothing wrong. He was occasionally allowed to leave the horrible, dirty gaol, with its loathsome insects and wicked companions, and walk for a short time in the garden by himself, because his keepers knew that when he had given his word he would not try ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... then, while the blood continued to stream from the wound, he cut round the bone until flesh was entirely severed from flesh. The upper periosteum was pushed back and held by means of a metal plate. The bone was sawn through—the saw grated and jerked and jarred in a horrible manner. The leg came off and I dropped it into the white enamelled pail. The toe-nails clicked against the enamel, and the thigh, bumping against the rim, overturned it and flopped into the pool ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... inchantors, the follie of soothsaiers, the impudent falshood of cousenors, the infidelitie of atheists, the pestilent practises of Pythonists, the curiositie of figurecasters, the vanitie of dreamers, the beggerlie art of Alcumystrie, the abhomination of idolatrie, the horrible art of poisoning, the vertue and power of naturall magike, and all the conueiances of Legierdemaine and iuggling are deciphered: and many other things opened, which haue long lien hidden, howbeit verie necessarie to be knowne. Heerevnto is added a treatise vpon the nature and substance of spirits ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... depths of the pocket, or with its title sticking out, the paper was everywhere, even as the article was certain to be in every mind; and we imagined the Nabob upstairs, exchanging amiable sentences with his guests, who could have recited to him word for word the horrible things printed concerning him. We all laughed heartily at the idea; but we were dying to know the ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... was for him to do. He must play the man's part. The battle must be fought again. That horrible, grisly Enemy far up there to the north, upon the high curve of the globe, the shoulder of the world, huge, remorseless, terrible in its vast, Titanic strength, guarding its secret through all the centuries ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... people of liberty, when he appointed them to rest two days at Pasche, one at Whitsunday, &c., how can the king's majesty and the church be esteemed to spoil us of our liberty, that command a cessation from labour on three days?" &c. O horrible blasphemy! O double deceitfulness! Blasphemy, because so much power is ascribed to the king and the church over us, as God had over his people of old. God did justly command his people, under the law, to rest from labour on other days beside the Sabbath, without wronging them; therefore the ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... h. But, according to Note 1st, under Rule 1st, "When the indefinite article is required, a should always be used before the sound of a consonant, and an, before that of a vowel." Therefore, an should be a; thus, "I have seen a horrible thing in ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... and a carriage; everything was so different from—this. But after my mother died, he grew restless. He sold everything and came to this rough, wild country. None of his old friends would know him now, with his beard, his boots and the horrible red flannel shirt." ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... and everyone in the bar gasped. He took off his hat, and with a violent gesture tore at his whiskers and bandages. For a moment they resisted him. A flash of horrible anticipation passed through the bar. "Oh, my Gard!" said some ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... in Paris that says he has found a cure for that horrible disease of hydrophobia, and who therefore regards the poor sufferers of whom others despair as not beyond the reach of hope. Christ looks upon a world of men smitten with madness, and in whose breasts awful poison is working, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... that the estate of Man can never be without some incommodity or other; and that the greatest, that in any forme of Government can possibly happen to the people in generall, is scarce sensible, in respect of the miseries, and horrible calamities, that accompany a Civill Warre; or that dissolute condition of masterlesse men, without subjection to Lawes, and a coercive Power to tye their hands from rapine, and revenge: nor considering that the greatest pressure of Soveraign Governours, proceedeth ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... SHE have?' the waking man muses, as he turns her face towards him, and stands looking down at it. 'Visions of many butchers' shops, and public-houses, and much credit? Of an increase of hideous customers, and this horrible bedstead set upright again, and this horrible court swept clean? What can she rise to, under any quantity of opium, higher ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... to see them again subject to individual persecution, as anger, or malice, or any bad passion may suggest: hence the whip, the chain, the iron-collar! hence the various modes of private torture, of which so many accounts have been truly given. Nor can such horrible cruelties be discovered so as to be made punishable, while the testimony of any number of the oppressed is invalid against the oppressors, however they may be offences against the laws. And, lastly, we are to see their innocent offspring, against whose personal liberty the shadow ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... prostrate form, horror of the deed falling upon him. "Of what have I been guilty? This man's blood upon my head?" Terror-stricken, he looked about the room. Again his eyes returned to the thing lying beside him. Was that a movement of the distorted face? He gazed upon it in horrible fascination. Slowly the lips of the dead man parted, the jaw dropped, and it seemed as though a hideous smile lay ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... with lamentations and loud moans, Resounded through the air pierced by no star, That e'en I wept at entering. Various tongues, Horrible languages, outcries of woe, Accents of anger, voices deep and hoarse, With hands together smote that swell'd the sounds, Made up a tumult, that for ever whirls Round through that air with solid darkness stain'd, Like to the sand that in the whirlwind ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... saturday next after Ashwednesday, hauing about the Sunnes going downe, taken vp our place of rest, the armed Tartars came rushing vpon vs in vnciuil and horrible maner, being very inquisitiue of vs what maner of persons, or of what condition we were: and when we had answered them that we were the Popes Legates, receiuing some victuals at our handes, they immediately ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... and they told him of the deed of the sons of Turenn. Then Lugh searched for the place of a new grave, and when he had found it he caused it to be dug, and the body of his father was raised up, and Lugh saw that it was but a litter of wounds. And he cried out: "O wicked and horrible deed!" and he kissed his father and said, "I am sick from this sight, my eyes are blind from it, my ears are deaf from it, my heart stands still from it. Ye gods that I adore, why was I not here when this crime was done? a man of the children of Dana slain by his ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... with a sort of cry. A horrible light, an incredible interpretation was beginning to dawn upon him. "You can't think it ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... alone in her bed, with no counsel or comfort near her but her little newborn child. She reflected upon the strange and horrible adventure that had befallen her, and, without making any excuse for her ignorance, deemed herself guilty as well as the unhappiest woman in the world. She had never learned aught of the Friars, save to have confidence in good works, and ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... Welsh hostage, a little boy of seven, was hanged at Shrewsbury, because his father, a South Wales chief, had rebelled. In the reign of Edward I., the miserable David was dragged at the tails of horses through the streets of the same town, and the tortures inflicted on the dying man were too horrible to describe to modern ears. And what the Norman baron did, his Welsh tenant learnt to do. In Wales you get fierce frays and frequent shedding of blood; on the borders you get callous cruelty to a prisoner, or the disfiguring of dead bodies— even that of Simon de Montfort, ...
— A Short History of Wales • Owen M. Edwards
... is to sell himself for money? Oh, Trichy! do not you talk about money. It is horrible. But, Trichy, I will grant it—I cannot marry him; but still, I love him. He has a name, a place in the world, and fortune, family, high blood, position, everything. He has all this, and I have nothing. Of course I cannot marry him. But ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... much sleep," I said dryly. For he looked horrible. There were lines around his eyes, which were red, and his ...
— The Case of Jennie Brice • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... drag to hell A spirit from on high; But oh! more horrible than that Is a curse in a dead man's eye! 260 Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, And yet I could ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... you lately, expecting your arrival. As you are not come yet, you need not come these ten days if you please, for I go next week into Norfolk, that my subjects of Lynn may at least once in their lives see me. 'Tis a horrible thing to dine with a mayor! I shall profane King John's cup, and taste nothing but water out of it, as if ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... fervent prayers of supplication. Hand by the block stood the grim figure of the executioner, his visage being concealed in a tengallon pot with two circular perforated apertures through which his eyes glowered furiously. As he awaited the fatal signal he tested the edge of his horrible weapon by honing it upon his brawny forearm or decapitated in rapid succession a flock of sheep which had been provided by the admirers of his fell but necessary office. On a handsome mahogany table near him were neatly arranged the quartering ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... neither of us could see much actual harm in the idea, and we were married accordingly at a registry office in London. Everything would have been well, and all would have gone as we hoped, but for the one unforeseen and horrible calamity. My wife died six months before my grandfather, on the day ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... old men of sixty. In some older men and women, the face was at first sight revolting and baboon-like; I say at first sight, for on a second look the mild sad eye redeemed the distorted features; it was as though the man were looking out of a horrible mask. ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... will have their skin-coat shaken once yet before they die. By this means, to one I gave a hundred florins, to another six score, to another three hundred, according to that they were infamous, detestable, and abominable. For, by how much the more horrible and execrable they were, so much the more must I needs have given them, otherwise the devil would not have jummed them. Presently I went to some great and fat wood-porter, or such like, and did myself make the match. But, before I did show him the old hags, I made a fair ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... yield at the first touch of civilization. In New Ireland, however, Mr. Romilly happened to be present at a sort of state banquet, given in honour of a victory over the enemy. The enemy himself supplied the materials of the repast. The details of the preparation of the horrible food may be read in Mr. Romilly's pages by all who have a curiosity on the subject. Some few particulars concerning a compound called ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... times in using the sweeps, as well as afterward in fishing, but somehow, although we ran the risk ourselves, we had not the heart to let the young ones get into the danger—for, after all is said and done, it was a horrible danger, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... mines in the Indian Territory, asking for the appointment of an inspector under the act referred to. The recent frightful disaster at Krebs, in that Territory, in which sixty-seven miners met a horrible death, gives urgency to their appeal, and I recommend that a special appropriation be at once made for the salaries and the necessary expenses of the inspectors provided for ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... by two naked combatants, with pistol and bowie-knife, in a dark room? One thrills to think of those first few moments of breathless, sightless, hopeless, hushed expectation, —then the confused encounter, the slippery floor, the invisible, ghastly terrors of that horrible chamber. Many a man would shrink from that, who would march coolly up to the cannon's mouth ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... previous, several of the neighboring tribes had met in the adjacent forest, and that the Powows of the whole district had passed three days and nights in cursing the strangers, and uttering against them the most horrible imprecations. The effect of this diabolical proceeding, in causing the defeat of their foes, Coubitant did not do not; and, in spite of his veneration for the English, and his conviction that their deities were more powerful ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... down the column and gathered that she was still at large, though the entire police force of New York was on her track. He shivered at the thought, and began to feel sympathy for all wrong-doers and truants from the law. It was horrible to have detectives out everywhere watching for beautiful young women, just when this one in whom his interest centred was trying ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... insertion of the diaphragm. Several ribs were severed, and the left thoracic cavity was wholly exposed to view, showing the lungs, diaphragm, and pericardium all in motion. The lungs soon became gangrenous, and in this horrible state the patient lived twelve days. One of the curious facts noticed by the ancient writers was the amelioration of the symptoms caused by thoracic wounds after hemorrhage from other locations; and naturally, in ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... God, who is terrible in his judgments, even when they come from a Father's hand that is not pursuing in pure anger and wrath, but chastening in love. Sure all must think that his dispensations with the wicked will be much more fearful and horrible, seeing they are not yet reconciled to him through the ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... want to set Europe on fire," said the peaceable Rivet, "to ruin every trade and every trader for the sake of a country that is all bog-land, they say, and full of horrible Jews, to say nothing of the Cossacks and the peasants—a sort of wild beasts classed by mistake with human beings. Your Poles do not understand the times we live in; we are no longer barbarians. War is coming to an end, my dear mademoiselle; it went out with the Monarchy. This is ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... cheerful part of my news; otherwise this horrible Paris presses on me with a hundredweight. Often I bleat like a calf for its stable and for the udder of its life-giving mother. How lonely I am amongst these people! My poor wife! I have had no news as yet, and I feel deathly soft and flabby ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... stares me in the face every waking hour, like a grisly spectre with bloody fang and claw, is the extermination of species. To me, that is a horrible thing. It is wholesale murder, no less. It is capital crime, and a black disgrace to the races of civilized mankind. I say "civilized mankind," ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... a cradle to this tornado of motion. She had been frightened before, but never like this. The blood pounded in her head and eyes until it seemed it would burst forth, and now and again the surging of it through her ears gave the sensation of drowning, yet on and on she went. It was horrible to have no bridle, and nothing to say about where she should go, no chance to control her horse. It was like being on an express train with the engineer dead in his cab and no way to get to the brakes. They must stop some time and what then? Death seemed inevitable, and yet as the mad rush continued ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... August," whispered Dorothea piteously, and trembling all over,—for she was a very gentle girl, and fierce feeling terrified her,—"August, do not lie there. Come to bed; it is quite late. In the morning you will be calmer. It is horrible indeed, and we shall die of cold, at least the little ones; but ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... there was by no means a sufficient depth of water. His lordship, however, was resolved that the experiment should be tried: and, accordingly, they got safely into the harbour; though not without a considerable degree of that horrible grating of the ship's bottom, while forcing it's way through the sands, which so often thrills those who navigate this perilous road. The weather being bad, his lordship and friends, on landing, went into a carriage; from which the shouting multitude, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... received a sample of her peculiar style. Anne announced the Countess Cuerbo. Wilhelm rose, prepared to leave Pilar alone, but the visitor had followed on the heels of the maid, and rustled into the red salon, exclaiming in her strident voice and horrible Spanish accent ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... this woman suffered was coining. Probably the method of execution here related was adopted in consequence of the horrible occurrence narrated ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 36. Saturday, July 6, 1850 • Various
... him before he started. Opinions however were still divided as to whether he had simply lost patience and come in regardless of all consequences, or had been really misled and had dashed in to the assistance of Johannesburg. The position was at best one of horrible uncertainty, and divided as the Committee were in their opinions as to his motive they could only give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that there was behind his action no personal aim and no deliberate disregard of his undertakings. ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... Commodore's prophecy has been fulfilled!" observed Philip to Krantz. "Many others, and even the Admiral himself, have perished with him—peace be with them! And now let us get away from this horrible place as soon ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... sawed away without respite. Zangiacomo conducted. He wore a white mess-jacket, a black dress waistcoat, and white trousers. His longish, tousled hair and his great beard were purple-black. He was horrible. The heat was terrific. There were perhaps thirty people having drinks at several little tables. Heyst, quite overcome by the volume of noise, dropped into a chair. In the quick time of that music, in the varied, piercing clamour of the strings, in the movements of the bare ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... had known him, to have been lost among the common herd of low swindlers and rogues, for none of them would have given him credit for enterprise or sagacity. He emerged, however, from obscurity, to perpetrate the most horrible and devilishly ingenious crime of the century; for it was he who under the name of Thomassen blew up the "City of Bremen" with his infernal machine. Those who have read the account of that dreadful tragedy will remember that the explosion was precipitated by the fall of the box containing dynamite ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... can be safely said that nowhere, outside of hell, was there such a horrible condition as prevailed in Missouri. Singly and in squads a good many of Price's men returned from the South, and with local sympathizers forming guerrilla bands under such leaders as "Bill" Anderson, Poindexter, Jackson, and ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume
... of Johnson was singular; he would not allow him to know anything but Latin grammar, "and that," says he, "I know as well as he does." I never heard Johnson say anything severe of him, though when he mentioned his name, he generally "grinned horribly a ghastly smile,"' ['Grinned horrible,' &c. Paradise Lost, ii. 846.] Forbes's Beattie, p. 333. The use of the abbreviation Monny on Johnson's part scarcely seems a proof of kindliness. See ante, i. 453, where he said:—'Why, Sir, Sherry is dull, naturally dull,' &c.; ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... the grand end to be attained. They demand such a reconstruction as shall put an end to the present anarchical state of things in the late rebellious States,—where frightful murders and wholesale massacres are perpetrated in the very presence of Federal soldiers. This horrible business they require shall cease. They want a reconstruction such as will protect loyal men, black and white, in their persons and property; such a one as will cause Northern industry, Northern capital, and Northern ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... by no means welcome visitors, and that they were not to expect being permitted to land peaceably. As the boat approached the shore, the natives seemed to become frantic with despair, made frightful faces, tore their hair, and howled in a horrible manner; and at length, as borrowing courage from the increase of danger, they hurried into their canoes and put off from the shore, as if to meet that danger the sooner which was evidently unavoidable. As the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... of foote, and shorte liued as not passyng xl. yeres, he that liueth longest. Their ende is not more incredible, then it is miserable. For when their drawe into age, their briedeth a kinde of winghed lice in their bodies, of diuers colours, and very horrible, and filthie to beholde: whiche firste eate out their bealies, and then their brest, and so the whole body in a litle space. He that hath this disease, first as thoughe he had on hym some tickelyng ytche, all to beskratcheth his bodie with suche pleasure, as ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... you I felt there was something wrong. I knew you couldn't be happy with him. A girl like you, with your education and refinement, and a man like him—a hired man! Oh, the whole thing would have been ridiculous if it weren't horrible. Not that he's not a good fellow and as straight as they make them, but—— Well, thank God, I'm here ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... did not like the fashionable Saint-Germain. He thought him a humbug, even when the doings of the deathless one were perfectly harmless. As far as is known, his recipe for health consisted in drinking a horrible mixture called "senna tea"—which was administered to small boys when I was a small boy—and in not drinking anything at his meals. Many people still observe this regimen, in the interest, it is said, of their figures. Saint- Germain used to come to the house of ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... on the sensitive and inexperienced Hilda was like a horrible nightmare. She cannot believe her senses, and yet she has to believe them. It seems to her as if the fiery pit has yawned between her and the rest of the human race. Her position is much like that of Hamlet, and the effect on her is somewhat similar. She thrusts Miriam ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... have a horrible suspicion, I cannot explain it to you now, but the age and the name agree. Ah, that infamous Talizac! again and again he crosses my path; but if I catch him now, I will stamp upon ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... something wrong with the child, he knows what I'm thinking, I can tell it by the way he looks at me. And daddy said darling, that's ridiculous, how could he possibly know what you're thinking? Mommy said I don't know but he does! Ever since he was a little boy he's known—oh, Ben, it's horrible, I can't do anything with him because he knows what I'm going to do before I do it. Then daddy said Carol, you're upset about today and you're making things up. The child is just a little smarter than most kids, there's nothing wrong with ...
— My Friend Bobby • Alan Edward Nourse
... through a vessel, touching not a soul on board, and yet from the flying splinters left in its path cause the death of a score; its way may lie through the boilers, still touching no one, and yet the most horrible of all deaths, that by scalding steam, result. It may chance to hit the powder magazine, and sudden annihilation be the fate of both ship and crew; or, passing below the water line, bring a no less certain, though slower fate—that which met the brave little ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... great and gracious Being whom I was teaching him to trust in and adore. His whole soul revolted against the notion, that the great and blessed God, the merciful Father of all mankind, would speak of a servant, or maid, as mere 'money,' and allow a horrible crime to go unpunished, because the victim of the brutal usage had survived a few hours. My own heart and conscience at the time fully sympathised with his" ("The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua," p. 9, ed. 1862). It was under these circumstances that God taught that a thief, who possessed nothing ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... about Our Coal-Fire: Or, Christmas Entertainments. Treating of Mirth and Jollity, Eating, Drinking, Kissing, &c. Of Hobgoblins, Raw-Heads and Bloody-Bones, Tom-Pokers, Bull-Beggars, Witches, Wizards, Conjurers, and such like horrible Bodies. Adorn'd with many diverting Cuts. Price ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany - Parts 2, 3 and 4 • Hurlo Thrumbo (pseudonym)
... moral qualities not found in human nature; they transformed it into a race of giants; they represented it as monstrous, hideous, truculent, changing forms at will, blood-thirsty and ravenous, just as the Semites represented the races that opposed them as impious, horrible and of monstrous size. But notwithstanding these mythical exaggerations, which are partly due to the genius of the Aryans so prone to magnify everything without measure, the Ramayan in the course of its epic narration has still preserved and noted here and there some traits and ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... to be on board one of our galleys," Matteo said. "It is horrible standing here doing nothing, when such a fight as ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... of this sect, was executed during the reign of Tiberius, by the procurator Pontius Pilate, and the deadly superstition, suppressed for a time, began to burst out once more, not only throughout Judea, where the evil had its root, but even in the city, whither from every quarter all things horrible or shameful are ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... horrible!" exclaimed Mrs. C. Mr. Charlston and George laughed heartily. The girls shrugged up their ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... drummers, besides trumpets and shawmes, which they sound after a wilde maner, much different from ours. When they giue any charge, or make any inuasion, they make a great hallow or shoute altogether, as lowd as they can, which with the sound of their trumpets, shawmes and drummes, maketh a confused and horrible noyse. So they set on first discharging their arrowes, then dealing with their swordes, which they vse in a brauerie to shake, and brandish ouer their heads, before they come ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... as she began to drag the comb impatiently through her tumbled curls, "you scared me so with those men and Mrs. Bragley's horrible papers that I forgot everything else. Fancy! A few hours more and we ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... their broad humanity, are chiefly noteworthy because the Emperor himself practiced in his daily life the principles of which he speaks, and because tenderness and sweetness, patience and pity, suffused his daily conduct and permeated his actions. The horrible cruelties of the reigns of Nero and Domitian seemed only awful dreams under the benignant ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... tells. Hugo could find no higher compliment for Baudelaire than to announce that the latter had discovered a new one. For new shudders are as rare as new vices; antiquity has made them all seem trite. The apt commingling of the horrible and the trivial, pathos and ferocity, is yet the one secret of enduring work—a secret, parenthetically, which Hugo ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... melody. Predacious animals are chiefly distinguished for their nocturnal habits; and ideas of rapine, terror and blood, are ever associated with the tiger, the hyena, and the wolf. Among the feathered tribes, the owl and the bat, also companions of darkness, are shunned by many, as horrible objects, and full of ill-omen. Haunted castles, ruined battlements, and noisome caverns, are the chosen abodes of these noctural maurauders, and it is to such associations that these animals are indebted for the unamiable character they have obtained. The prejudices conceived ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various
... in these respects. The young people in the villages of that district were honest, and not lacking in wits; but they were uncouth to a degree that seemed to me, coming as I did from the home of all grace and charm, a thing horrible, and not to be endured. They were my neighbours; I was bound, or so it seemed to me, to help them to a right understanding of the mercies of a bountiful Providence, and to prevent the abuse of these mercies by cowish gambols. I let it be understood wherever I went that whoever would study ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... indeed. I have had enough of the family for one morning. Why, child, I have but this moment escaped from his horrible mother. Such a penance as I have been enduring, while you were sitting here so composed and so happy! It might have been as well, perhaps, if you had been in my place, but you always contrive to keep out of ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... thing go mad, Fitz; you didn't. It was the most horrible, most frightening thing I've ever experienced. I will not go ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... which formerly existed in Holland. "The ancient laws of the country ordained men to be kept on bread alone, un-mixed with salt, as the severest punishment that could be inflicted upon them in their moist climate. The effect was horrible: these wretched criminals are said to have been devoured by worms engendered in ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... events were the Bill for fortifying Paris, the campaign waged against Abd-el-Kader in Algeria, and a horrible act of cruelty perpetrated there. In Spain Don Carlos abdicated his claims to the throne in favour of his son; the Queen's engagement to Count Trapani was rumoured. In other parts of Europe little ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... year 1667, a horrible earthquake in a few moments destroyed the prosperity of the state for whole centuries. It was as if the genius of the Ragusian literature had been crushed under the ruins. From that period we find all that relates to literature in ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... the room. "It's all horrible," she said. "Why should people be tortured and kept miserable and helpless year after year by this disgusting sanctimonious law?" But someone had come into the room, and June came to a standstill. Jolyon went ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of the East will take some time to be taught the social customs of the West. To an Indian it would be a horrible idea if his sister or daughter or wife will go out to tea or supper or dance with a young man who is neither related nor a close friend of the family. India will ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... the logical deductions from his creed? On the contrary, persons denying that we can sin are easy to find. Writes the latest British apostle of Hinduism, for the leaders of reaction in India are a few English and Americans: "There is no longer a vague horrible something called sin: This has given place to a clearly defined state of ignorance or blindness of the will."[119] I quote again also from Swami Vivekananda, representative of Hinduism in the Parliament of Religions at Chicago in 1893. It is from his lecture ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... to do it. Why, then, we say to those men, "You are indeed now put to the test. The men of Belgium, the men of France, the men of Serbia, however willing they were to protect women from the things that are most horrible—and more horrible to women than death itself—have not ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... us to open wide the door And let all Thebes behold the parricide. His mother's—names too horrible he used, Vowing he'll doom himself to banishment, Nor live beneath the curse himself called down. But some support and guidance he will need, For he is stricken past man's strength to bear. Thyself will see it, for behold, the gates Open and will a spectacle ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... clothing and odds and ends. More shapes of clothes hanging up and swaying with the roll of the brig. A little window high up at the end, black with dirt. And cavities, bunks in rows, along the walls. A horrible hole. ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... enormous remainder of him, if it is very frankly negligible by the mere reader, it is not quite so by the student. He was very popular, and, careless bookmaker as he was in a very critical time, his popularity scarcely failed him till his horrible death.[342] It can scarcely be said that, except in the one great cited instance, he heightened or intensified the French novel, but he enlarged its scope, varied its interests, and combined new objectives with its already existing schemes, even in his less good ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... The idea seemed too horrible. It was she herself who had so readily answered all her chum's questions in regard to these things. In doing so, had she not been betraying her own country? Once the clue was given, all sorts of suspicious circumstances came rushing into her mind. She wondered ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... the Medusa. It represented the starving, the dead, and the dying of the Medusa's crew on a raft in mid-ocean. The subject was not classic. It was literary, romantic, dramatic, almost theatric in its seizing of the critical moment. Its theme was restless, harrowing, horrible. It met with instant opposition from the old men and applause from the young men. It was the trumpet-note of the revolt, but Gericault did not live long enough to become the leader of romanticism. That position fell to his contemporary and fellow-pupil, Delacroix (1799-1863). It was in 1822 that ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... was stalking through the land. In Connaught there were no less than forty-seven deaths from starvation within the week—not merely reports of deaths, but forty-seven cases in which coroners' juries returned verdicts of death from starvation. This was a horrible state of things, and he hoped that they would soon be put an end to. The landlords had come forward to give relief—at least, to some extent; but the merchant classes, he regretted to say, were holding ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... giving way to despair he drew up a list of his blessings and afflictions, "like debtor and creditor," found a reasonable balance in his favor, and straightway conquered himself,—which is the first task of all real heroes. Again, he had horrible fears; he beat his breast, cried out as one in mortal terror; then "I thought that would do little good, so I began to make a raft." So he overcame his fears, as he overcame the difficulties of the place, by setting himself to do alone what a whole race ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... penetrating eyes. In his latter days, sketches such as Clara Militch, The Song of Triumphant Love, The Dream, and the incomparable Phantoms, he showed that he could equal Edgar Poe, Hofmann, and Dostoevsky in the mastery of the fantastical, the horrible, the mysterious, and the incomprehensible, which live somewhere in human nerves, though not to ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... been collected and published a score of times. The miracles themselves, indeed, are not very numerous. In Gaultier de Coincy's collection they number only about fifty. The Chartres collection relates chiefly to the horrible outbreak of what was called leprosy—the "mal ardent,"—which ravaged the north of France during the crusades, and added intensity to the feelings which brought all society to the Virgin's feet. Recent scholars are cataloguing and classifying ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... was a great relief to me to read just now your interview in THE NEW YORK TIMES of Nov. 22, for I have been afraid that your judgment and mine, concerning the desirable outcome of this horrible war, were very different. I now find that at many ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... organ of the Socialists-Revolutionists of Russia, in April, 1918, stated that the situation of the church and clergy was horrible. "Everything pertaining to them is being spit upon and profaned. People, with rifles on their shoulders and their hats on, often enter the church and right there question the clergymen and arrest priests, at the same time mocking the religious feelings of the praying crowd. Many ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... so great encumbrance thys day by your vayne speakyng. And I must speake (sayd he) as God geueth me grace, and I beleue I haue sayd no euill to hurt any body. Would God (sayd the Accuser) ye had neuer spoken, but you are brought forth for so horrible crimes of heresie, as neuer was imagined in thys countrey of before, and shall be sufficiently proued, that ye cannot deny it: and I forethinke that it should be heard, for hurting of weak consciences. Now I wyll ye thee no more, and thou shalt heare ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... f. n.? fetter, figuratively of a strong gripe: dat. pl. heardan clammum, 964; heardum clammum, 1336; atolan clommum (horrible claws of the mother of ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... begged, "take away this horrible golden gift! Take all my lands. Take all my gold. Take everything, only give me back ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... How horrible! What was it doing? Hunting? If there are no hares here what could it be hunting? A rabbit, or a pheasant with a broken wing, or perhaps a fox? I should not mind so much if it were a fox. I hate foxes; they catch young hares when they are ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... not, nor whispered, nor scarcely moved, so menacing had become the slow, listening caution of Wetzel and Zane. Snapping of twigs somewhere in the inscrutable darkness delayed them for long moments. Any movement the air might resound with the horrible Indian war-whoop. Every second was heavy with fear. How marvelous that these scouts, penetrating the wilderness of gloom, glided on surely, silently, safely! Instinct, or the eyes of the lynx, guide their course. But another dark night wore on to the tardy dawn, ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... red with unshed tears. It was not the first time that morning. "It's all too horrible," she murmured. "But I haven't any right ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... force me to extremes, Your Grace, for then we shall have the same horrible spectacle here as in Germany. For the last time: are you willing to make concessions if the welfare of the ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... It was a wretched hovel, dark, low, damp, bad-smelling, and full of dust and spiders' webs—a horrible refuge for a woman accustomed to living in the giant's grand castle. Without seeming troubled, Finette went to the hearth, on which a few green boughs were smoking, took another golden bullet from her purse, and threw it into ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... down in cold print or even to tell them; for even our best friends are sometimes dull of heart and slow of understanding when we tell them perfectly wonderful things that our children did or said. We all know that horrible moment of suspense when we have told something real funny that our baby said, and our friends look at us with a dull is-that-all expression in their faces, and we are forced to supplement our recital by saying that it was not so ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... helplessly thrust, And bury in agony-shrouds; A simoom of sorrow whose pestilent breath To the strong and the weak, to the young and the old, Brings despair that is reckless of possible gain, And the awfullest anguish of death; Till the soul in its rage uncontrolled, Droops low in the horrible sickness and sorrow ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller
... and whores, with other good company, Liars, backbiters, and flatterers the while, Brawlers, liars, jetters, and chiders, Walkers by night, with great murderers, Overthwart guile[rs] and jolly carders, Oppressors of people, with many swearers, There was false law with horrible vengeance, Froward obstination with mischievous governance, Wanton wenches, and also michers, With many other of the devil's officers; And hatred, that is so mighty and strong, Hath made a vow for ever ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... just in time to see the unfortunate Caraccioli dragged from his knees by the neck, until he rose, by a steady man-of-war pull, to the end of the yard; leaving his companion alone on the scaffold, lost in prayer. There was a horrible minute of the struggles between life and death, when the body, so late the tenement of an immortal spirit, hung, like one of the jewel-blocks of the ship, dangling passively at the end of the spar, as insensible as the wood ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... (De Verb. Apost. Jacobi; Serm. cxxx), in speaking of perjury: "See how you should detest this horrible beast and exterminate it from all ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... said, "Horrible! However, Jonas, let us thank God for having thus preserved our lives, when all besides are in such ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... for my benefit, and the old brute, tasting his sorry jest, turned and slapped me again, winking all the time with his formidable brows in a spasmodic and horrible manner, that was like ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... but they drove him on. Hope was dead; he had made a horrible mess of things. All that was left was to take his punishment and hold on until he was knocked out, but he meant to do this. He did not stop for dinner with the rest, but occupied himself with something that needed doing, and forgot ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... approaching a detailed history of the dreadful days of the riot. I merely hope to give a somewhat correct impression of the hopes, fears, and passions which swayed men's minds and controlled or directed their action. Many of the scenes are too horrible to be described, and much else relating to the deeds and policy of recognized leaders belongs to the sober page of history. The city was in awful peril, and its destruction would have crippled the general government beyond all calculation. Unchecked lawlessness in New York would soon have ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... wan iv th' finest Gainsboroughs painted be th' Gainsborough Mannyfacthrin' comp'ny iv Manchester. At th' las' public sale, it was sold f'r thirty dollars. Misther Higbie has also purchased th' cillybrated Schmartzmeister Boogooroo, wan iv th' mos' horrible examples iv this delightful painther's style. He is now negotyatin' with th' well-known dealer Moosoo Mortheimer f'r th' intire output iv th' Barabazah School. Yisterdah in a call on th' janial dealer, th' ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... School, and then at Christ Church, Oxford. At the age of seventeen he went abroad for three years' travel on the Continent; and, while in Paris, witnessed, from the windows of the English Embassy, the horrible Massacre of St Bartholomew in the year 1572. At the early age of twenty-two he was sent as ambassador to the Emperor of Germany; and while on that embassy, he met William of Orange— "William the Silent"— who pronounced him one of the ripest statesmen in Europe. This was said of a young man ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... blown up at once, and we nearly jump out of the boat! But we soon see that it was nothing but the guide striking on a piece of sheet-iron or tin. The echoes, one after another, from this noise had produced the horrible crashing ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... with hardly a dissentient (old Sinzendorf almost alone in his contrary notion, and he soon dies). Robinson urges the dangers from France. No Hofrath here will allow himself to believe them; to believe them would be too horrible. "Depend upon it, France's intentions are not that way. And at the worst, if France do rise against us, it is but bargaining with France; better so than bargaining with Prussia, surely. France will be contentable with something ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... an ugly business—it is carnage and horror. The thought of man butchered by his brother, the thought of both sea and land stained with human blood, spilled by human hands, is too horrible for contemplation. Yet peace at the price we were asked to pay would have been, in its ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... eternity of tense waiting I tried to collect my thoughts. I told myself that I must keep steady, that I must keep my mind clear. I struggled to get a grip on myself; the light, the steady flying without power, the boundless, horrible silence had shaken me. But there was more to come. I knew it. We all knew it. And it was not physical strength that would pull us through—it was wits. We must hold steady. Thank God we all had years of training—war experience, peace experience, countless life-and-death ...
— The Floating Island of Madness • Jason Kirby
... join the car, but were tempted to go a little out of our way to look at a nice white house belonging to the laird of Glen Coe, which stood sweetly in a green field under the hill near some tall trees and coppice woods. At this house the horrible massacre of Glen Coe began, which we did not know when we were there; but the house must have been rebuilt since that time. We had a delightful walk through fields, among copses, and by a river-side: we could have fancied ourselves in some part of the north of England unseen before, it ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... well, though," said Cicely, becoming serious again, "but I'm a Clinton just as much as the boys are, and just as much as you are a Graham. You say the Grahams are not swells—you do use horrible language, Muriel dear—but I suppose Lord Conroy is, and so, according to your argument, ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... Alexia, casting up a pale eye full of wrath on the side next to Polly, and giving another twitch. "I guess if you'd been hooked up by a horrible old thing, and your aunt came in and scolded you terribly, you wouldn't wait. Ow! Oh, ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... mad!" cried the Major. "In all England you could not have picked out a person more essentially unfit to be introduced to a lady—to a young lady especially—than Dexter. Have you heard of his horrible deformity?" ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... severely incredulous of the reputed effects of poison-ivy; and one day, by way of maintaining his position, gathered a spray of it and applied it to his face. He was not long in finding the vine in question an ugly customer. His face assumed the aspect of a horrible mask, and the dimensions of a good-sized water-pail, with nothing left of the eyes but two short, straight marks. For once, Will had to succumb and be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... their history, have displayed the same character. The illustrious era of Leo X was signalized in the New World by acts of cruelty that seemed to belong to the most barbarous ages. We are less surprised, however, at the horrible picture presented by the conquest of America when we think of the acts that are still perpetrated on the western coast of Africa, notwithstanding the benefits ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt |
